Mercedes GP MGP W01

[marcush.]

to me not the car is the problem ,but the team unable to gain justified confidence in putting it in its operating window it ´s like a jojo ...it seems not that far away from the frontrunners only to dropoff suddenly another half a second..
with both drivers posting identical times ,I´d say it is the limit of the car as it is set up ....wrong for the conditions we had in Q.

[mx_tifoso]

[BreezyRacer]

Those exhausts seem to point to the diffuser.

[ringo]

this little piggy is being surpassed in the development game.
It's reached its ceiling now.
Williams and renault are through, FI are better on some days as well. Only a matter of time merc will be fighting for p14 and p15.

Car is quick, but only when the stars align for 1 lap. Too inconsistent to challenge for wins.

[warmasice]

why does the mercedes seem like such a tank?

the front of the car looks huge.. the nose cone upto the drivers area! also the side pod doesnt seem to be packaged verywell... even the sauber looks like a neat well packaged car that cuts through the air nicely.

seems like mercedes just dont have the expertise there. i dunno.

[MichaelW]

Those tyre issues need to be solved or the same --- is going to appear again next year. They never sorted it out last year and it bites them back still a full year later now

[mep]

I don't think the tires where the problem this time. The car is just slow.

[Predator]

tarmac temp that is ..22ambient is not very hot....isn´t it?

but I would not even say 31 °C tarmac temp is really hot....it is just it raised by 8°C from FP3 ..What else would have changed till the morning slowing them down?
Rubber down as the track was washed out overnight again... so something do do with
not being able to make use of the track getting rubbered in ...

Again ..I remember Brittney talking about:The Merc guys not adjusting the car to the conditons but waiting for the conditions to improve ...So the other way round ...if the car fits when the track is green ...as the condtions change the car goes away...
I do not remember exactly ...but I think MERC was quite near the front in FP1/2 in those races were they struggled to find speed in Q?

It is a real mystery. They were fine in the FPs, but come qualifying, when having to use the SS tyres, they were struggling. But the point is, the increase in temps resulted in them not being competitive, as we have seen all season long. Very difficult to say why this is. As you say, the temps did not rise by much but their performance dropped off significantly. Or maybe it's a case of other teams simply upping their game when it actually matters? Every weekend Merc flatter to deceive during the Free Practice sessions, which brings me back to the last point - other teams simply have more in reserve. Merc reach their peak in the FP sessions, so to speak, while others are building up to theirs. But as we have heard from Nick Fry and Ross Brawn, they mention an inherent flaw with the car which is not fixable this year. We should expect them to slide further from now on as they look to cease development on the car. Race victories look almost impossible for the remainder of the season, unless all other top teams retire.

[WhiteBlue]

I'm pretty sure it was tyre related again. It may not have been the same thing they had the last time. THis time the rear end had no grip and the front end was massively oversteering as Nico told us. On SKY he literally said the car was sh!t. They have this adjustable front wing and he used the minimum wing setting which made no difference.

So if we compare it with the last series of problems they had in Canada you can conclude that they probably went a step too far with the balance. In Canada they could not heat up the front tyres and had understeer. This time they had oversteer and no rear grip.

If we assume that they need to set up the rear and front suspension in relatively narrow temperature ranges it would explain the thing. They had no problems on wets, intermediates and on prime tyres. The problem just hit on the super soft options at temperature conditions that they had never tested. The other teams probably know what they have to do to set up their cars for the conditions and do not have so narrow set up windows anyway.

[mep]

I just heard that the Mercedes floor got wavy because of the hot exhaust gases and that they have to run this "damaged" floor during the race now.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

this little piggy is being surpassed in the development game.
It's reached its ceiling now.
Williams and renault are through, FI are better on some days as well. Only a matter of time merc will be fighting for p14 and p15.

Car is quick, but only when the stars align for 1 lap. Too inconsistent to challenge for wins.

Care to re-evalute?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

why does the mercedes seem like such a tank?

the front of the car looks huge.. the nose cone upto the drivers area! also the side pod doesnt seem to be packaged verywell... even the sauber looks like a neat well packaged car that cuts through the air nicely.

seems like mercedes just dont have the expertise there. i dunno.

The car was designed before Mercedes involvement. This is effectively a Brawn badged as a Mercedes.
Next year you will see the fruits of Mercedes involvement.
Secondly with Homolgation rules, you cannot change much ahead of the side pods.
So if it sucks, your stuck with it for the season.

[vealio]

Norbert Haug today "For other teams the operating window of the car is as big as a huge entrance door, our´s is as big as the slot of a mail box"

says it all...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns22473.html

[ringo]

this little piggy is being surpassed in the development game.
It's reached its ceiling now.
Williams and renault are through, FI are better on some days as well. Only a matter of time merc will be fighting for p14 and p15.

Car is quick, but only when the stars align for 1 lap. Too inconsistent to challenge for wins.

Care to re-evalute?

I said a matter of time, maybe next 3 races Merc will be in the dumps.
The race pace is not looking good at all. The Williams, Saubers and Renaults were the better cars today.